Help on spoon with MS mark from Norway

[overly]

This spoon from Norway is marked only with an MS. I think it is early 19th or late 18th century because of the drop construction on the back of the spoon. I don't know when they stopped making spoons this way. Does anyone have any idea where it was made or a tighter time frame for its manufacture?

[blakstone]

Michael Steen (1738-1821), working in Tønsberg from 1763. I think your dating is spot on.

[Hose_dk]

Why do you say it is Norwegian?

Norway standard was 4 marks - Maker, Wardein, City and Month. According to Danish (norwegian) law.
The patern could be norwegian, but it could also be danish. A danish city not Copenhagen could also be the case.

We are around 1790 untill 19?? (could be 1930ties) patern possible untill then. My guess is around 1840.

[Hose_dk]

ie unless blackstone is correct - then it should be dated earlier.

[blakstone]

Only in the major Norwegian centers (Bergen, Trondheim and, to a lesser extent, Christiania) was the full sequence of maker, warden, city and month mark adhered to with any sense of consistency. Just as in Denmark, provincial Norwegian silver was frequently marked with only a city and maker's mark, and often just the maker's mark. I'm pretty confident in the Michael Steen, Tønsberg attribution.

[overly]

I said it is Norwegian because these spoons have been passed down to me through my family which is from Norway- and all the other spoons are Norwegian. Allthough, I suppose I could have had a Danish ancestor 200 years ago.

Thank you very much for the information on the maker. At the risk of either sounding ignorant on the one hand or offensive on the other, if this is a known maker, why isn't the mark posted on the Norwegian makers page?

[admin]

why isn't the mark posted on the Norwegian makers page?

Hi Overly,
As yet, the Norwegian page only covers 20th century makers, with a couple of late 19th C. smiths thrown in for good measure. Someday, I hope to expand it to earlier marks. Even were it now covering earlier makers, we've not had an example of this mark...'til now.

Regards, Tom

[Hose_dk]

Thrue yes but I see no mark from Tønsberg
But it is most likely correct as I have not found any danish marks corresponding to this.

As for the site - Norwegian makers are very purely documented. Most of the books published is sold out. And a book covering Norway does not excist.
In the norway book that I have there are 2000 marks. And that only covers part of the country. And it is not complete. Then I have a book covering only a small part of Norwaiy - with other marks.
My danish books contains 1653 marks from Copenhagen and 4931 from rest of Denmark + 480 from the location called Sønderjylland. Approx 7000 marks in total and the register is very incomplete.
The Swedish book contains some 10.000 marks.

So when you turn to the big countries like Germany, Poland, Italy, France etc etc etc you can calculate marks in 100.000 or more likely millions of different marks. A complete register on-line we will never see.

Just a comment.

[overly]

Wow, silver must have been good business. So if there were so many silversmiths, am I correct to assume that each town had at least one smith of its own and that silver was purchased in a locally? - If this spoon was produced in Tonsberg it was most likely purchased there?